Love story: Friends at early age, couple became romantic in college

It was hardly love at first sight when Julie Houk and Ron Bohman met in 1959. To be fair, they were both 5 at the time, and likely more interested in snack time than true love.

Both of their families had moved to Bellevue to help launch a new Presbyterian church. The adults hit it off and became lifelong friends.

Ron and Julie, not so much.

“He has two brothers, and I have two brothers,” Julie said. “The adults got to sit in the dining room and have decent conversation. I had to sit in the kitchen with the boys.”

Ron nodded.

“She used to wander off and find a place to read.”

To add insult to injury, when school started, Ron got to go to kindergarten, but due to the birthday cut-off date, Julie was left behind.

“I’m 11 days older than her, and I never let her forget it,” Ron said, grinning.

Julie’s family moved to Spokane in 1961, but the two families stayed in touch, often vacationing together.

After graduation in 1972, Ron moved to Pullman to attend WSU. Julie followed a year later. When Ron heard from family members that Julie was on campus, he called her mother to get her phone number.

“He asked me to a barn dance in Spokane,” Julie recalled. “After I hung up the phone, my roommate said, ‘Ohhh, hot date?’ and I replied, no, just an old family friend.”

In their north Spokane living room, Ron sighed.

“Well, we had been old friends – that’s just how we thought of each other,” Julie said.

However, in a letter to The Spokesman-Review, Ron insisted he was totally smitten when he met her at age 5.

“Still am,” he wrote.

Later that fall, when Julie saw him across the room at a Young Life meeting, she thought, “He is really handsome!”

He walked her back to her dorm that night and soon they spent football games, study dates and meals together.

One night after he dropped her off at her dorm, Julie peered out her window, watching him walk away in his “waffle stomper” shoes, carrying a box of computer cards.

“I wondered, am I falling in love with him? It sort of scared me,” she said.

Speaking of scared. Their first kiss occurred in the skywalk leading to her dorm.

“I kissed her goodbye, and she just kind of blinked,” Ron recalled. “I thought, I’m gonna find out pretty soon how that kiss was taken.”

He needn’t have worried, and soon he was pondering his proposal.

“I had a lot of grandiose ideas,” he said. “But I ended up blurting out ‘Will you marry me?’ in the lobby of her dorm.”

Her reaction took him aback.

“She burst into tears. Then I started to cry. Then I realized those were happy tears!” Ron said.

His father liked to be in-the-know about everything, so when the families gathered for Thanksgiving, he pulled Ron aside and asked if he needed money for an engagement ring.

“I told him no, I didn’t need one, and he immediately told the rest of the family there was no engagement coming,” Ron said.

After dinner, Ron made the announcement, and Julie slipped on the ring she had tucked in the pocket of her blouse.

“She wasn’t wearing that when she got here!” Ron’s dad said.

Ron graduated with a business degree in 1976, but he stayed on another year and earned a mechanical engineering degree.

“I had to make sure nobody got her,” he said.

They married June 25, 1977, three weeks after Julie received her education degree.

The couple moved to Kirkland, Washington, where Ron worked for Boeing and then for the family boat engine business, and Julie taught school.

Daughter Sarah arrived in 1980, followed by Melissa in 1982. Daughter Renae completed the family in 1988.

Julie stayed home with the girls for 13 years before returning to teaching.

In 1994, the family moved to Spokane, where Ron and Julie opened Genesis Granite, a monument engraving business. After helping him start the business, Julie taught at Mead Middle School before retiring last year. Ron retired in 2015.

Those were happy, busy and stressful years, but in 2004, tragedy struck. Renae was killed in a car accident, two days after Christmas. She was 16 years old.

“We’re still dealing with it,” Ron said.

“Counselors told us 60% to 80% of couples who lose a child end up divorced,” Julie said. “We were strong for each other. When one of us fell apart, the other was strong. We took turns. We weren’t sure for a long time how we were to survive.”

Their faith and their commitment to each other helped. So did the arrival of five grandchildren.

“We didn’t put up a Christmas tree, till the grandkids came,” Ron said.

All of their grandchildren are in town, and the couple delight in watching them grow. After 42 years of marriage, they’re glad they didn’t give up when the going got hard.

Ron offers this advice. “Ride out the rough spots. Stick with it.”

Julie reached for his hand, adding, “When the rough spots smooth over, they’re markers of what you’ve been through. They’re reminders that bolster your confidence in your relationship.”